| | I've been using shortcut-type bread recipes for so long that I forgot how much I love to bake good bread the long, slow way. Time to check out Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice from the library again and do a refresher course in what real bread is about.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone who likes to bake bread. After I read it for the first time bread stopped being a recipe and became a seductive art with hidden secrets and challenges. I obsessed about bread, made the best bread of my life, and only stopped when my health issues got in the way. Now that I'm feeling better it's all bread, all the time again.
A short primer on what Reinhart's book covers: bread is not about yeast, it is about flour. At the heart of every great loaf of bread is flour that has been handled correctly -- its starch molecules awakened by enzymes to spin out into multiple sugary-alcohol flavors and gelatinized, its glutiase and glutiathone developed, its proteins roasted.
What all this translates to, mostly? Slow. Take it slow and do it right. Coax the most flavor possible out of the dough with a pre-ferment, make the first ferment (bulk rise) long and slow, be patient with the second ferment and shaping. Hydrate the dough to the maximum amount possible and be rewarded with a crumb so well gelatinized that it almost sparkles in the light and has a creamy taste on the tongue. A crust blistered and crackly. A loaf that develops flavors on the second and third day instead of simply going stale.
I would give almost anything (if it were mine to give, which it's not, of course) to learn bread under someone like Peter Reinhart, to have a true master baker demonstrate the art to me and critique my efforts. Instead, I'm going to try using Reinhart's recipe to make brioche. Stay tuned.
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| | Posted 8/20/2008 2:51 PM - 52 Views - 0 eProps - 1 Comment
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